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Top 10 sustainability predictions for commodities in 2024 – by Staff (Mining.com – December 19, 2023)

https://www.mining.com/

Global mining and metals sector consultancy CRU has released its top 10 sustainability predictions for commodity markets in 2024, covering topics that were already hot this year. These include reporting standards, nature conservation, climate action, carbon pricing and critical raw materials.

Here is a summary of what CRU analysts expect for 2024:

1. Reporting: As reporting pressures increase, companies need to prepare for a range of new and expanded reporting requirements both in scope and quantity. CRU warns that standards are increasingly overlapping, which mean that transition planning is critical to navigating policy uncertainty and liability risk.

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Mining the Northwest: Ottawa went too far on regulating mining, infrastructure projects: experts – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – December 21, 2023)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Legal experts say ball’s in Ottawa’s court to revamp and make legal Canada’s Impact Assessment Act

The Canadian government’s environmental assessment process is in disarray. On Oct. 13, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in a 5-2 decision that most of Ottawa’s controversial Impact Assessment Act (IAA) was unconstitutional and far outside the government’s authority to assess and make decisions on major resource and infrastructure projects

Only 10 out of 188 sections in the Act — passed in 2019 — were deemed valid. And that was a narrow section of the IAA concerning projects on federal land and that are federally financed.

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US Turns Tables on Putin in Africa PMC Powerplay – by Brendan Cole (Newsweek Magazine – December 20, 2023)

https://www.newsweek.com/

Security firm Bancroft Global Development is looking to manage mining sites in the Central African Republic (CAR), following a push by Washington for the former French colony to stop relying on Russian-backed Wagner mercenaries, it has been reported.

Radio France International (RFI) said that delegates from the U.S-based firm had been talking with the CAR over providing trained, equipped units to protect sites in the country where armed groups operate.

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Coal financing is still booming – led by China (Bloomberg/Mining Weekly – December 20, 2023)

https://www.miningweekly.com/

The amount of bank financing going to mining coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel of them all, remains at surprisingly high levels. Most of it is coming from China.

A new report from researchers at BloombergNEF shows that all funding for coal projects and coal-exposed companies needs to drop precipitously to limit the chances of global temperatures rising more than 1.5 °C by midcentury.

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The only thing wrong with the globalist climate agenda — the people won’t have it – by Ross McKitrick (The Cochrane Times-Post – December 20, 2023)

https://www.cochranetimespost.ca/

Phasing out fossil fuels is going to cost way more than ordinary people will accept. Delegates to COP28 clearly didn’t understand that

It’s tempting to dismiss the outcome of COP28, the recent United Nations climate change conference in the United Arab Emirates, as mere verbiage, especially the “historic” UAE Consensus about transitioning away from fossil fuels.

After all, this is the 28th such conference and the previous ones all pretty much came to nothing. On a chart showing the steady rise in global CO2emissions since 1950 you cannot spot when the 1997 Kyoto Protocol entered into force (2002), with its supposedly historic language binding developed countries to cap their CO2 emissions at five per cent below 1990 levels by 2012, which they didn’t do.

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Diamond Sales Slowly Restart After Efforts to Halt Price Crash – by Thomas Biesheuvel (Bloomberg News – December 18, 2023)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — The world’s two biggest diamond miners are selling stones again after the industry all but halted supplies in a desperate attempt to stop a collapse in prices.

This year’s rout that was driven by swelling inventories forced the sector to take radical steps to support the market. Russia’s Alrosa PJSC in September halted all sales for two months, and was followed by buyers in India — the dominant cutting and trading center — voluntarily banning imports. De Beers allowed its customers to refuse all gems they’re contracted to buy.

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Steven Guilbeault’s bad-faith plan to ban gas-powered cars – by Jesse Kline (National Post – December 21, 2023)

https://nationalpost.com/

The Liberals don’t like to characterize their policies as causing potentially irreparable divisions between Eastern and Western Canada. Yet nothing screams “Laurentian elite looking out for their own at the expense of everyone else” quite like the recent press conference announcing the government’s new Electric Vehicle Availability Standard.

On Tuesday, about a dozen Liberal MPs braved gridlocked traffic to make their way to George Brown College in downtown Toronto, where senior party members extolled the virtues of phasing out gas-powered vehicles by 2035.

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Newsmakers 2023: End of an era for Vancouver mining giant Teck – by Nelson Bennett (Business In Vancouver – December 21, 2023)

https://biv.com/

Vancouver-based Teck Resources sacrifices most profitable assets on altar of ESG

One of the biggest B.C. business news stories of 2024 was the announcement Teck Resources (TSX:TECK.B, NYSE:TEK), B.C.’s biggest miner and Canada’s only diversified mining major, will sell its most profitable assets – its B.C. coal mines – to an even bigger diversified mining major: Switzerland’s Glencore plc (LSE:GLEN).

For $9 billion, Glencore will acquire a 77 per cent interest in Teck’s four steelmaking coal mines in B.C., collectively called Elk Valley Resources (EVR), with Nippon Steel and South Korea’s POSCO owning the balance in a deal totalling $12 billion. EVR will also own 46 per cent of Neptune Terminals in North Vancouver.

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March: Updates on critical mining in northern Ontario – by By Norm Tollinsky (Canadian Mining Journal – December 21, 2023)

https://www.canadianminingjournal.com/

When George Pirie, Ontario’s mines minister, closes his eyes and imagines what a resurgent northern Ontario mining industry will look like five years from now, he might see new nickel mines in Sudbury and Timmins, a battery industrial park in Cobalt, haul trucks transporting nickel concentrate on the recently completed road from the Ring of Fire, and multiple lithium mines and processing facilities in northwestern Ontario.

It is a good bet that much of the scenario will indeed materialize. The drills are confirming that the resources are there, the environmental assessments are progressing, and meetings with battery manufacturers and the automobile industry are resulting in offtake agreements.

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Argonaut Gold cashes up to build ounces at Dubreuilville mine – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – April 15, 2023)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Toronto gold company raises $85 million in share raise to fund future expansion

Toronto’s Argonaut Gold has raised $85 million to fund future expansion at its Magino Mine, outside Dubreuilville, and another mine in Nevada. The financing was done through a public offering of more than 223,000 common shares that closed on Dec. 12.

In a news release, the company said the proceeds are earmarked to “fund development and optimization” at Magino and its Florida Canyon Mine in Nevada. The company didn’t specify how much will be individually allocated between Magino and Florida Canyon.

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AngloGold Ashanti invests in G2 Goldfields as Guyana faces annexation threat – by Colin McClelland (Northern Miner – December 19, 2023)

https://www.northernminer.com/

AngloGold Ashanti (NYSE:AU), the fourth-largest gold producer, is buying a stake in Guyana-focused G2 Goldfields (TSXV: GTWO; US-OTC: GUYGF) even as neighbouring Venezuela vows to seize the land where its main project sits.

Denver-headquartered AngloGold is paying $22.5 million for 11.7% of G2, AngloGold said on Tuesday. G2 plans to update its resource next year for the OKO project which lies 120 km west-southwest of the South American country’s capital city, Georgetown.

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Costco’s hottest item isn’t rotisserie chickens. It’s US$2,000 gold bars – by Nathaniel Meyersohn (CTV News – December 17, 2023)

https://www.ctvnews.ca/

Would you like a US$2,000 gold bar at Costco with your $4.99 rotisserie chicken? Yes, Costco sells more than just toilet paper, office supplies and food items, and the company is quite effective at it.

A 24-karat 1 oz. Gold Bar PAMP Suisse Lady Fortuna Veriscan was listed as sold out on Costco’s site this week and bars usually sell out hours after being posted on Costco’s website, according to chief financial officer Richard Galanti.

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OPINION: Teck Resources is amassing the cash to slowly triple its copper production – by Andrew Willis (Globe and Mail – December 19, 2023)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

By next fall, Teck Resources Ltd. chief executive officer Jonathan Price will likely be sitting on US$9-billion in cash, the payout for selling its coal mines in British Columbia.

The CEO of the country’s largest mining company will also have a long list of projects to spend that money on, including planned new mines in Mexico, Peru, Chile, the United States and Canada that will triple Teck’s copper production and make it one of the world’s largest metal producers.

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Can beaten-up junior miners fight illegal short-selling? – by Alisha Hiyate (Northern Miner – December 18, 2023)

https://www.northernminer.com/

Terry Lynch began to notice unusual price movements in Power Nickel (TSXV: PNPN; US-OTC: PNPNF)’s stock (then called Chilean Metals) years ago. The shares consistently traded down at the end of the day, regardless of news, with late day trades often made anonymously.

Now the stock is stuck in a range of 25¢ to 30¢ — despite a recently released initial nickel-sulphide resource for the company’s optioned Nisk project in Quebec, and a staged deal with battery and defence supplier CVMR to fund engineering studies.

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Long-delayed Minnesota copper-nickel mining project wins a round in court after several setbacks – by Steve Karnowski (Associated Press – December 18, 2023)

https://apnews.com/

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The Minnesota Court of Appeals on Monday affirmed a decision by a state agency to grant a major permit for the proposed NewRange copper-nickel mine, saying regulators adequately considered the possibility that developers might expand the project in the future.

It was a win for NewRange Copper Nickel, which remains stalled by court and regulatory setbacks. The $1 billion open-pit mine near Babbitt and processing plant near Hoyt Lakes would be Minnesota’s first copper-nickel mine. It’s a 50-50 joint venture between Swiss commodities giant Glencore and Canada-based Teck Resources. The project was renamed NewRange Copper Nickel in February but it’s still widely known by its old name, PolyMet.

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